In his December 2009 article, “The Developing European Tinderbox,” Brian Whitmer warned that rock-solid relationships in an uptrend can dissolve in a downturn. Whitmer said the positive mood in which the European Union was born would eventually give way to negative mood and lack of unity among the bloc’s member countries. Today, lack of European unity is not only manifested in Britain’s decision to leave the EU but in the actions of numerous other countries within the bloc. Chuck Thompson looks at these manifestations in the April 2017 issue of The Socionomist. Following are excerpts from his article.

In April 1998, The New York Times reported that most of the countries in Western Europe were about to “irrevocably bind their currencies together.” In the next month’s issue of The Elliott Wave Theorist, Peter Kendall warned that forced inclusion in the union once social mood turned negative was a “setup for future conflict.” …

The following year, Robert Prechter’s book The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior listed the formation of the European Union among numerous expressions of peace in the late 1990s. Prechter said that the mood-driven “pageant of apology, concession and agreement” that drove the creation of the EU would not last forever. …

Today, the EU is facing multiple challenges, including the complicated task of negotiating Britain’s exit from the union. Views of the EU are polarized. Some Europeans blame the EU for their countries’ problems. Others praise what they see as social and economic benefits to closer ties across Europe. …

A look at the EUROSTOXX 50 index shows the conflicting long- and intermediate-term social mood trends in Europe. In a nutshell, a positive shorter-term social mood trend is battling a long-term negative trend, reflected by a standing 17-year-old correction. It’s no wonder that European politics exhibit similarly conflicted trends. Let’s tour political expressions across the continent. …

Britain—One of the EU’s biggest challenges involves the negotiations of Britain’s departure from the union. The EU will carry out the negotiations under the terms of Article 50, which provides for countries to leave the union. In 2007, EU member states approved Article 50 as part of the Treaty of Lisbon, which amended the two treaties that formed the constitutional basis of the EU. Because an exit seemed like a remote possibility at the time, member states wrote Article 50 in a vague manner. A lecturer at the University of Cambridge said they drafted the Treaty of Lisbon with the idea that Article 50 “would not be used.” …

Scotland—Most Scottish voters opposed Britain’s decision to leave the EU. Now, Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon is calling for a referendum on Scottish independence from Britain in fall 2018 or spring 2019, when terms of the British exit from the EU will be clearer. The British Parliament must approve the referendum. …

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